Bicycle Friendly Community Feedback

As part of the League of American Bicyclists "Bicycle Friendly Community" program, the LAB gives cities feedback, constructive criticism oriented around the five E's of Engineering, Education, Encouragement, Enforcement, Evaluation & Planning. In addition to pointing out current weaknesses or areas for improvement, the criticism is also a road map for the next round of certification. Salem was rated "bronze" and the feedback points the way to silver or gold.

In the next few months, we hope the city will share with us what its plans are for improvement!

LAB Bicycle Friendly Community Feedback 2008

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Summer 2008 Bike Counts

A big thanks to everyone who helped out! Here’s the report:

The counts
Volunteers helped the City of Salem complete its first ever bicycle count this summer. During the summer months 21 volunteers performed 40 manual counts at 32 sites around the city. Counters tallied direction, gender, and helmet use during two-hour peak traffic times, either 7am to 9am, or 4pm to 6pm. The two-hour counts were normalized to 24-hour volumes. City staff then mapped the count data.

By comparison, the Portland Office of Transportation has been conducting counts annually since 1992. At the same time this year, volunteers and city Transportation staff in Portland performed 115 counts. Their counts show clear year-over-year trends of increasing bicycle use. Here's the Portland report. (It's big!)

Drawing conclusions from Salem’s count data is more difficult without the trend lines to smooth out random variation. For example, the sunny day traffic was approximately double cloudy day traffic (moreover, a couple of March counts were half the corresponding summer counts). Even so, since Salem participation in the Bicycle Transportation Alliance Bike Commute Challenge indexes closely to Portland’s over the last five years, it is reasonable to hope that Salem trends will follow Portland trends. On this assumption, helmet usage and the gender ratios suggest Salem may be ten to fifteen years behind Portland in bicycle usage.

Not surprisingly, bicycle usage is greatest in the older parts of the city – the core downtown area where large employers are located, where there are fewer hills, and where the older street grid makes it possible for bicyclists to avoid arterial roads.

Highlights
High and Low Individual Counts

• 585 at 12th & Chemeketa (ave at this location - 415)
• Zero at Fairview & Summer

Counts by Segment

• over 300 bicyclists – 3 sites – all on Chemeketa
• between 200 and 300 – 5 sites
• between 100 and 200 – 13 sites
• under 100 – 11 sites

Highest use on Residential Local or Collector Streets
Most arterial streets did not show the highest bicycle usage. Where counts were high on arterials, bicyclists crossing the arterial rather than traveling along the arterial seemed to account for most of the traffic. This should be investigated more closely next year.

• Chemeketa – between 14th & 17th, bicycle traffic is 30% or more of total vehicular traffic
• Winter
• D street

Helmet Use
Helmet use increases as bicyclists increase. In both Portland and Salem women use helmets at significantly higher rates than men.
2008 Helmet use rates:

• In Salem 55% of riders used helmets.
• In Portland 80% of riders used helmets.

Gender
When bicycling is safe and convenient, women and families bicycle in large numbers. While bicycle usage is being established more men bicycle. Over time as bicycling becomes more prevalent, gender ratios move towards a 50/50 split.

• In Portland in 1992 the split was about 80/20 males-to-females.
• In Portland 1999 it was 75/25.
• In Salem in 2008 it was also 75/25.
• In Portland in 2008 it was 68/32.
• In Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, the Gender split is about 50/50.

For Next Year
The first count was a terrific success and created a good baseline for further comparisons. We hope to evaluate year-over-year growth at many of the same sites. The data also raises addition questions and opportunities for evaluation next year:

• Focus counts on arterials and parallel residential streets (such as high vs. commercial) to determine bicyclist preference.
• Evaluate the bridges – the new Union RR bridge and the existing Center St. multi-use path.
• Assess bicycle traffic to Schools, especially Chemeketa, Willamette, and area high schools.
• Perform more counts outside of the central city – North Salem & Keizer; East Salem, especially around Lancaster; South Salem in the hills and on the arterial/collector network; and in West Salem.

How the Rivercrossing Project fails Transit

Transit is sick in Salem. We all know the Cherriots levy failed. But over the last year the Rivercrossing project has also gone down a path that denies the value of transit.

A recent memo from this past summer makes clear what many of us have supposed:

the Salem River Crossing project Build alternatives are designed to improve single occupant vehicle travel time…

There is no serious attempt to improve the movement of people and goods across the river in a way that is efficient, cost-effective, and anticipates both climate change and peak oil. The project is wholly business-as-usual.

Bicycle advocates have argued that the Governor’s climate change initiative, House Bill 3543, requires looking at ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Building a bridge for single-occupant vehicles will only increase greenhouse gas emissions. The plan to build this bridge is patently inconsistent with the need to reduce emissions.

Bridge boosters claim that they have investigated the alternatives, and that the alternatives are woefully inadequate, offering small incremental improvements at best.

When we look at the analysis, however, it appears that boosters have stacked the deck against other modes and created something of a straw man argument.

First let’s look at congestion pricing and tolling. From the August 15, 2007 TSM/TDM (Transit and Roadway Efficiency) Concept - Analysis and Results memo (tsm/tdm = transportation system management and transportation demand management):

For modeling purposes, parking fees in downtown Salem were used as a one possible example of user fees that could be adjusted to influence travel demand. (2)

Even if we suppose that the model is perfect, the analysis didn’t try tolling or congestion pricing. It adjusted parking pricing only, and limited that adjustment to the downtown area only, penalizing those who wished to patronize downtown merchants, whose patrons currently enjoy free parking, and didn’t impose any additional costs on those who might be shopping on Lancaster or taking trips elsewhere in the city. Although the modelers don’t discuss this explicitly in the memo, it’s likely that the parking fees didn’t reduce trip demand so much as shift discretionary trips from downtown to elsewhere. The minimal reduction is probably also an admission that many of the trips don't end or begin in downtown.

They conclude saying,

The results show that increasing the area where parking charges are applied in the downtown area and tripling the average amount charged could reduce auto trips by 10% (from 86.6% of trips to 76.2% of trips). (3)

Now let’s look at transit. Here the assumptions are even more narrow.

The transit element consists of the operation of two new routes, one on Highway 22 and one on Wallace Road, each serving downtown (and possibly other employment destinations in the city)…. Stops were also minimized or limited to the park and ride lots provided. (4)

The model added only two new stops, at the park and ride lots! The model did not add a robust level of enhanced transit service with a network of stops near the front doors of residents. The transit service is minimal and inconvenient, and makes people get in their cars – why would they get out of their cars to stop at a park and ride lot for a short trip into downtown? This is a fatal simplification.

Moreover, the analysis only looks at getting people from the park and ride lots to downtown. It supposes they don’t have to transfer to get elsewhere in the city. Eliminating transfers is second fatal simplification in the model.

If you want people to use transit, it should be direct, frequent, and easy to use. The level of transit service used in the model fails two of the three.

Nevertheless, the analysts believe otherwise:

The level of new transit service assumed in the model is a high level of service for the routes and geographies served. However, as shown above, this level of service does not produce a significant shift in total trips across the bridge. The bridge users in the peak hour have trip origins and destinations that extend well beyond the area served by the two new transit lines. (6)

Note that they understand the problem of transfers, and yet insist on ignoring it.

Not surprisingly the analysis concludes:

This level of additional transit service would result in only very small daily changes in transit ridership compared to increasing the parking charges....the model shows that adding the increased transit service does not result in additional reductions in vehicle trips across the existing bridges.(5-6)

In order to knock down the extent to which virtually any TSM/TDM option, like congestion pricing, tolling, or transit might relieve congestion in a no-build or low-build option, analysts used two poor straw men, that of parking pricing and inconvenient transit, to argue that the whole suite of TSM/TDM strategies cannot succeed.

This is confirmed in the July 21, 2008 memo on the TSM/TDM/Transit Expanded Subcommittee:

Analysis to date has shown that providing transit system and operations improvements in the absence of user fees (tolls or parking charges) to discourage auto trips results in small reductions in demand. (1-2)

and

As was demonstrated in the study of a stand-alone TSM/TDM alternative (see “TSM/TDM (Transit and Roadway Efficiency) Concept – Analysis and Results” memo, dated 8/15/07), improvements to the transit system such as more buses and improved headways still leave the transit system at a significant disadvantage compared to single occupant vehicles with respect to trip time across the river and individuals’ understood time value of money. Consequently, such improvements to the transit system will have relatively little effect on peak hour demand on the existing bridges until or unless there is a significant increase in travel time (e.g., significant congestion for single occupant vehicles but not for transit) or the cost of driving (e.g., tolls, congestion pricing, parking pricing, fuel prices) for single occupant vehicles. Because the Salem River Crossing project Build alternatives are designed to improve single occupant vehicle travel time over the future No Build condition and do not propose differential user fees (e.g., congestion pricing), a significant time vs. money disadvantage for transit trips would be maintained, even with significantly improved bus headways. (2-3)

Unfortunately, it appears the analysis was not designed really to challenge or even seriously to investigate the assumption that TSM/TDM options are powerless to reduce congestion and improve the movement of people, goods, and services across the river. It was inadequate and served only to confirm the prevailing assumptions about the values of single-occupant vehicles and their easy movement.

Other project documents are available on the Rivercrossing library page.

Important ones include:
The 1999 Oregon Highway Plan Policy Element, which includes the "mobility standard"
Traffic Modeling information from SKAT/MWVCOG
River Crossing Purpose and Need statement
Threshold Memo
Evaluation Framework Memo
Alternative Methodology Report
Alternative Evaluation Results Memo

Cherriots Survey on Service Cuts

As you know, Salem-area voters defeated a transit levy. Cherriots has posted an online survey to gather community opinion and thought about how to cut services with the least harm. If you use transit or know someone who does, please take a few moments to complete the survey. Click through here to take the survey.

Holiday Schedule - Friday, Dec 12

After much discussion we decided not to hold B on B the days after Thanksgiving and Christmas or to try to move them up a week. Instead, we will hold Breakfast on Bikes on Friday, December 12, between 7am and 9am.

As we were in June, on the 12th we'll be on Water Street across from the A.C. Gilbert House, right where the bike path off-ramp from the Center Street Bridge merges with Water Street and Riverfront Park.

For your holiday needs, please remember our generous donors, Cascade Baking Company, the Coffee House Cafe, and LifeSource Natural Foods.


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Governor K's Two Cents

On Monday Governor Kulongoski released the first public draft of his Jobs and Transportation Act 2009.* The document is 23 pages - though the last third is appendices. The word bicycle (including bike, biking, and bicycling) appears only once, on page 6.

This is very disappointing. This alone suggests the plan is not very serious about its stated goals to: "Meet Oregon’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Goals" and "Account for Carbon in Transportation Planning."

The headlines of course are about the 2 cent increase in the gasoline tax and some associated motor vehicle fees. These too do nothing to reduce greenhouse gases.

It's possible to write a more detailed critique (and here) of the plan, but for the moment all bicyclists need to know is that the Governor's two cents on bikes is one tiny mention.


*The document's been circulating online, but it's not posted to the Governor's website yet. When it is posted, we'll link to it![update] It's now linked!

State Committees Focus on Bicycling

Two State committees have issued reports that show an increased interest bicycling as a priority for the State.

The less interesting one is the ostensibly obvious one. The Transportation Vision Committee Related to the Environment and Transportation Choices recently released to the Governor a set of recommendations, the Transportation Vison Committee Report to Governor Ted Kulongoski. On Monday, the Governor will reveal which of these recommendations he has chosen to incorporate in his own transportation agenda for the 2009 legislature.

You’d think that the Transportation Committee would have lots of thoughts on bicycles! Update: I was reading a precis of the recommendations; in the full report I note both Scott Bricker & Karl Rohde of the BTA were on the Committee. Drilling into the report, I noticed some BTA language!

They do in fact recommend that the 1971 Bicycle Bill be amended to “increase the required minimum spending level for bicycle and pedestrian improvements within highway rights of way from 1.0 percent to 1.5 percent.” They also have a cluster of recommendations around land use planning, rail, public transit, parking, congestion pricing, and a more sophisticated analysis of car and truck traffic that includes “social and economic costs.”

Alas, bicycling lurks implicitly on the penumbral edges of these. Though bicycling will certainly be involved in these conversations, the report does not name bicycling as central to them. I fear they regard bicycling still as not quite a “serious” transportation option.

Closer to being central is bicycling in the “Strategic Plan to Slow the rate of Diabetes in Oregon,” a Report to the 2009 Oregon Legislature from the HB 3486 Advisory Committee, and published by DHS: Public Health Division.

The report says, “the 2007 Oregon Legislature approved and Governor Kulongoski signed House Bill 3486, which declared an emergency related to diabetes and obesity. The bill directed the Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS) to develop by 2009 a strategic plan to start to slow the rate of diabetes caused by obesity and other environmental factors by 2010.”

For the 2009 Legislature, the report recommends this statutory change (among others):

Participate in legislative discussions regarding transportation priorities and funding, and advocate that health issues including bike and pedestrian facilities be considered.

Looking towards the 2011 Legislature, the report urges that governmental partners,

Establish health as a priority in land-use planning and transportation decisions and possible legislation in 2011, including but not limited to, policies and funding for bike/pedestrian facilities on all appropriate streets statewide, adding health as a consideration in land-use planning policies and decisions; and

Introduce a “Healthy Schools Act” in 2011, including but not limited to, requiring that school siting decisions facilitate biking and walking, allowing inclusion of school costs in system development charges paid by developers, banning advertising, offering physical education, and conducting health screenings.

Together, these point to bicycling as an integral part of a healthy lifestyle, for individuals and for communities, not merely for recreation or for commuting, but as a key part of the way we think of community creation, community maintenance, and mobility.

I am encouraged by the diabetes recommendations, and I hope that there will be multiple conversations in the 2009 Legislature about the different ways bicycling is a good thing.